


Nehi

by jenna_thorn



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-13
Updated: 2010-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 18:53:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/115798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenna_thorn/pseuds/jenna_thorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coming home</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nehi

It's just that he's tired, Radar knows. It's not like this is home, not this West Coast city of strangers and strange ways. He won't be home until he's in Iowa again, on the farm again, he knows that and there'll be plenty of folk there to welcome him back. Ma said they'd even put up a sign at the post office in town.

But he steps off the plane and the colors are too bright, there's too many of them and there's nowhere to rest his eyes, so he shuffles to the side, out of the way of people with purpose and he slides down, back on his heels, a wall to his back and he takes off his glasses to rub his eyes. He's in civvies; the officer had finished his debriefing with a warning to wear civvies, though he's not seen protestors or really much of anything, but the bag at his feet, well, knees now, is olive drab and it's a comfort, but not much of one. He's gotten used to it, to the smell of tent canvas and the plastic buttons that never button quite right and the food, but now he's not-there and yet he's not-here either and he doesn't know the answers and he's not been able to sleep and he misses Col Potter as much as he misses his mother and that's not right. San Francisco airport is in the very middle of a swirling mass of not-rightedness and he was sitting, mostly on his bag and a little against the wall, at the very center of it.

Fuzzy feet pass by until they make him dizzy and he puts his glasses back on and they snap into focus, into thick-heeled pumps that Klinger could wear and tiny feet in grubby tennis shoes with kid's knees attached and then, right in front of him, black Mary Janes and white tights.

Those don't pass, they face him and stay there long enough for him to look up all the way up to the other end of the white tights, up to a brown corduroy skirt and a white blouse with brown polka dots and a face with freckles on top of that and past the face a wild tumble of curls and a white ribbon. With more polka dots on it.

The ribbon in her hair made him smile and that made her smile down at him and reach out her hand. He didn't really know what else to do, so he pushed himself up to stand next to her, golly, almost over her, and she pointed to his bag and said, "You coming home?"

He didn't know what to say to that, didn't know how to say that he'd forgotten where home was, whether it was in his letters or under his feet, so he just nodded.

She smiled again.

He stood there silent for long enough that he could hear Hawkeye snicker behind him, then stammered, "Uh, my gate, I mean, I've got time, but I uh, I guess I should get there to uh, well, to wait there…um."

"Welcome home," she said and she raised up on tippy toes and kissed him, right there in front of pilots and passerby and no one even looked twice, as she kissed him right on the lips, like he was someone worth kissing, like he was a soldier come home from the war or something.

She didn't look back as she walked away and he stood in an airport hallway watching her dissolve into people he didn't know and really didn't care to. He licked dry lips and tasted something sweet, a half-remembered something, not lipstick, not toothpaste, candy-like. Something he'd know again when he had it. Once he got home.


End file.
